Old Assyrian period

The Old Assyrian period was the second stage of Assyrian history, covering the history of the city of Assur from its rise as an independent city-state under Puzur-Ashur I 2025 BC to the foundation of a larger Assyrian territorial state after the accession of Ashur-uballit I 1363 BC, which marks the beginning of the succeeding Middle Assyrian period. The Old Assyrian period is marked by the earliest known evidence of the development of a distinct Assyrian culture, separate from that of southern Mesopotamia and was a geopolitically turbulent time when Assur several times fell under the control or suzerainty of foreign kingdoms and empires. The period is also marked with the emergence of a distinct Assyrian dialect of the Akkadian language, a native Assyrian calendar and Assur for a time becoming a prominent site for international trade.
For most of the Old Assyrian period, Assur was a minor city-state with little political and military influence. In contrast to Assyrian kings of later periods, the kings in the Old Assyrian period were just one of the prominent leading officials in the city's administration and normally used the style Išši'ak Aššur, which translates to "governor of Ashur", rather than šar. The kings presided over the city's actual administrative body, the Ālum, which was made up of prominent and influential members among Assur's populace. Though lacking in military and political might, Assur was an important economic center in northern Mesopotamia. From the time of Erishum I until the late 19th century BC, the city was a hub in a large trading network that spanned from the Zagros Mountains in the east to central Anatolia in the west. During their time as prominent traders the Assyrians founded a number of trading colonies at various sites in the trading network, such as Kültepe.
The first Assyrian royal dynasty, founded by Puzur-Ashur I 2025 BC came to an end when the city was captured by the foreign Amorite conqueror Shamshi-Adad I in 1808 BC. Shamshi-Adad ruled from the city Shubat-Enlil and established a short-lived kingdom, sometimes called the Kingdom of Upper Mesopotamia, that collapsed after his death in 1776 BC. Events after Shamshi-Adad's death until the beginning of the Middle Assyrian period are poorly known, but there appears to initially have been some decades of frequent conflict in Assur and the surrounding region, not only between different states and empires, such as the Old Babylonian Empire, Mari and Eshnunna, but also between different Assyrian dynasties and nobles who vied for power over the city. This period culminated in the re-establishment of Assur as an independent city-state under the Adaside dynasty 1700 BC. Assur became a vassal of the Mitanni kingdom 1430 BC but broke free in the early 14th century after Mitanni suffered a series of defeats by the Hittites and began its transition into a large territorial state under a series of warrior-kings.
Through extensive cuneiform records, amounting to over 22,000 clay tablets found at the Old Assyrian trading colony at Kültepe, much information can be gathered about the culture, language and society of the Old Assyrian period. As in other societies of the Ancient Near East, the Old Assyrians practiced slavery, though confusion resulting from the terminology used in the texts might mean that many, but not all, of the supposed slaves were actually free servants. Though men and women had different duties and responsibilities, they had more or less the same legal rights, with both being allowed to inherit property, make wills, initiate divorce proceedings and participate in trade. The chief deity worshipped in the Old Assyrian period was, like in later periods, the Assyrian national deity Ashur, who had probably originated in the preceding Early Assyrian period as a deified personification of the city of Assur itself.

Terminology

Modern researchers divide the thousands of years of ancient Assyrian history into several stages based on political events and gradual changes in language. "Old Assyrian" is one of these stages and is thus a chronological label. As defined by Klaas Veenhof in 2008, the term applies to "the earliest phase of the culture of ancient Assur that is historically sufficiently recoverable to be called Assyrian", "Assyrian" here meaning the city of Assur and its culture rather than Assyria as a state governing a stretch of territory; Assyria only transitioned from a small city-state to a kingdom governing a larger stretch of territory in the succeeding Middle Assyrian period. As such, "Old Assyrian" refers to the history, politics, economics, religion, language and distinctive features of Assur and its people from the earliest comprehensive historical records at the site to the beginning of the Middle Assyrian period. Assur was much older than the commonly used beginning date for the Old Assyrian period, though the preceding Early Assyrian period is much more poorly known and Assur was not independent during that time but instead part of a sequence of states and empires from southern Mesopotamia.

History

Puzur-Ashur and his dynasty

Assur is generally thought to have become an independent city-state under Puzur-Ashur I, who ruled 2025 BC. Little is otherwise known of Puzur-Ashur, and it is unclear how exactly he came to power, though his descendants, Assyria's first royal dynasty, wrote that he had restored the walls around the city. Assur's independence was likely achieved in conjunction with the last Ur III ruler, Ibbi-Sin, losing his administrative grip on the peripheral regions of his empire. Very little archaeological evidence survives from Assur in the first half of the second millennium BC and as a result, relatively little is known about the city, its people and its rulers during this time. Surviving royal inscriptions from this time deal almost exclusively with building projects. What is known is that Puzur-Ashur and his successors after independence did not actually claim the dignity of being kings, as the Akkadian and Sumerian suzerains had done, but instead continued to style themselves as governors, asserting that the Assyrian national god Ashur was king and that the Assyrian rulers therefore were only his representatives on Earth. Assur was during the time of Puzur-Ashur's dynasty home to only about 5,000 to 8,000 people, which means its military power must have been very limited, and there are no sources that indicate any military institutions whatsoever. No surrounding cities were subjected to Assur and there are not even any known records of political interactions with the rulers of the city's immediate neighbors.
The earliest known surviving inscription by an Assyrian king was written by Puzur-Ashur's son and successor Shalim-ahum, and records the king having built a temple dedicated to Ashur "for his own life and the life of his city". Shalim-ahum's son and successor Ilu-shuma is the earliest Assyrian king known to have intervened in foreign affairs, campaigning and opening up trade. In one of his inscriptions, Ilu-shuma claims to have opened trade with the "Akkadians and their children" and selling copper. That Ilu-shuma was able to sell copper to kings in the south is significant because it illustrates that Assur at this time was producing enough copper to sustain both itself and others. Where this copper came from is not clear, perhaps Assyrian miners made the long trip to Ergani in the north-west, in later texts described as a significant site of copper-mining. According to his inscriptions, Ilu-shuma also constructed wells in Assur, used both as a source of water and to make bricks for the city wall. Ilu-shuma was succeeded by his even more successful son, Erishum I, the earliest king whose length of reign is recorded in the Assyrian King List, a later document recording the kings of Assyria and their reigns. Erishum initiated the earliest known experiment in free trade, leaving the initiative for trade and large-scale foreign transactions entirely to his populace. Though large institutions, such as the temples and the king himself, did take part in trade, the financing itself was provided by private bankers, who in turn bore nearly all the risk of the trading ventures. Through Erishum's efforts, Assur appears to have quickly established itself as a prominent trading city in northern Mesopotamia. Erishum earned some money himself through imposing tolls, which was put into expanding Assur itself: the temple of Ashur was rebuilt and expanded and a new temple, dedicated to the god Adad, was also constructed.
Erishum's son and successor Ikunum rebuilt the fortification wall around Assur, an event which required financial contributions of silver not only from Assur itself but also from its widespread trading colonies. Whether the wall had to be rebuilt due to normal wear or due to having been damaged in war is not known. It is possible that it was damaged during conflict with the southern city-state Eshnunna, which at this time was pursuing an expansionist policy. In any case, repairs were not complete until the long reign of Ikunum's son Sargon I. Though Sargon's reign appears to have been a prosperous one during which Assyrian trade reached its peak, the reigns of his son Puzur-Ashur II and grandson Naram-Sin saw Assur being threatened by foreign enemies, first by Ipiq-Adad II of Eshnunna and then by the more successful and dangerous Shamshi-Adad I of Ekallatum, a city located near Assur.

Trading colonies

Though evidence from Assur is scant, there are surviving rich textual records of Assyrian society and activity from the early Old Assyrian period, though they are not from Assur or northern Mesopotamia, but rather from central Anatolia. The largest known collection of old Assyrian tablets are from Kültepe, near the modern city of Kayseri. Kültepe, in this time period known by the name Kanesh, was also a city-state ruled by its own line of kings. In the lower city of Kültepe, to the northwest, the Assyrians established a trade colony, or karum, out of which two levels have been archaeologically investigated. Level II is particularly significant since it preserves about 22,000 cuneiform clay tablets that attest to a long-distance and extensive Assyrian trade network. The trade colony at Kültepe was a pivotal node in this network, which was centered in Assur and had extensive lesser trade posts throughout central Anatolia and likely Mesopotamia as well. This trade network is the first noticeable impression left by the Assyrians in the historical record. Assur was able to maintain its central position in the trade network despite being relatively small and having no history of military success.
After the discovery of the Kültepe tablets in the 20th century, many historians suggested that they were evidence of a large "Old Assyrian Empire", stretching into Anatolia, but this interpretation is today discredited based on surviving archaeological and literary evidence. It is however possible that the cultural traditions that reached Assur during the time of its early trade network played some role in the rise of the first Assyrian territorial state centuries later. Though an extensive number of Assyrian traders are known to have lived in the Kültepe trade colony, approximately 500 to 800 people, there are no obvious Assyrian elements in the settlement itself, apart from the tablets and seals. The houses in the colony can not be differentiated from the houses of the locals, which suggests that the traders lived not as colonists, but as expatriates, using the local artefacts and houses. In all likelihood, the Assyrian community at Kültepe did not live in a separate walled part of the town, but rather simply in their own part of the lower city, also home to local Anatolians. The Assyrian colony was not only a trading settlement, but also functioned as a center of various craft production activities, such as the production of pottery and metal objects. The preserved cuneiform tablets demonstrate that the Assyrians had their own separate administrative structures and court at Kültepe, and thus were somewhat self-governing. The Assyrian court at Kültepe based its rulings on Assyrian law, and often based its decisions on commands from Assur, sometimes issued by the kings themselves. In addition to trade, the cuneiform records at Kültepe also provide insight into the family lives of the traders, who often corresponded with their wives back home in Assur. These wives were in many cases responsible for gathering or acquiring the materials sold in the trading colonies.
The original trading colony at Kültepe appears to have been burnt down 1836 BC, which led to the preservation of the thousands of tablets, but it was shortly thereafter rebuilt, as attested by the presence of later Assyrian activity in the second layer. In total, it has been estimated that during just the time of documented trade in Level II of the Kültepe trading colony, about twenty-five tons of Anatolian silver was transported to Assur, and that approximately one hundred tons of tin and 100,000 textiles were transported to Anatolia in return. The Assyrians also sold livestock, processed goods and reed products. In many cases, the materials sold by Assyrian colonists came from far-away places; the textiles sold by Assyrians in Anatolia were imported from southern Mesopotamia and the tin came from the east in the Zagros Mountains. An Assyrian trader could probably make the distance between Assur and Kültepe in six weeks, travelling through donkey caravans. Though the traders had to pay road taxes and tolls to the various states and rulers in the lands in-between, profits were massive since the Assyrians sold many of their goods at double the price in Mesopotamia, or even more. Assur's importance as a trading center declined in the 19th century BC, whereafter Assyrian traders played a more modest role. This decline might chiefly have resulted from increasing conflict between the states and rulers of the Ancient Near East leading to a decrease in trade in general.